The Tattoo Thief

by Alison Belsham

  ‘You’re thinking what I’m thinking.’

  ‘Maybe – just maybe – they are linked after all.’ Their eyes met across the desk. It would need to be thoroughly investigated before they could draw any conclusions, but Francis’s heart was pounding. ‘Do we know what the tattoo was?’

  ‘A spider in a web that covered his whole skull. And a name, Bel-something. Belial?’

  ‘The Devil. How do we know this?’

  ‘Photos from his parents, guv.’

  They both sat still, on either side of the desk. Silence reigned for a long half minute, then both of them spoke at once.

  ‘You go ahead,’ said Francis. There was a pulse thudding at the base of his neck and he felt suddenly cold.

  ‘Do you think . . .?’ Rory’s eyes widened.

  A five-second silence. Neither of them wanted to say the words.

  Finally, Francis found his nerve.

  ‘One more like this and we’ll have a serial killer on our hands.’

  17

  Rory

  They couldn’t be certain. They chewed over the known facts for another hour, shooting down their own theories ruthlessly. Despite the public’s obsession with them, serial killers were incredibly rare so it wouldn’t do to go jumping to conclusions.

  ‘The head might turn up yet,’ said Rory. ‘It’s two murders, different MO, different cause of death, no known link between the victims.’

  ‘To be fair, we haven’t looked into that yet. We’ve only just got Walsh’s ID,’ said Sullivan. ‘And what’s the likelihood of two killers working the same patch in the same week?’

  ‘Serial killers start slowly. There’s been no time between these two killings.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Sullivan paused and opened one of his desk drawers. ‘Can we see Evan Armstrong’s tattoo and Walsh’s head as trophies?’

  He stared at the notepad on his desk, lost in thought. Rory sat opposite him and pulled a plain black vape out of his pocket. The soft sucking sound his lips made as he inhaled pulled Francis out of his reverie.

  ‘Put that away, Sergeant. You know as well as I do, no vaping.’

  Rory scowled as he exhaled but thrust the plastic gadget back into his trouser pocket. God, he hated working for a jobsworth and the new boss was turning out to be just that. There would be no cutting corners with DI Sullivan.

  ‘It’s too early to label this yet, or to officially connect the murders.’

  The boss going by the rules again. They both knew what the hell it was.

  ‘So we act like it isn’t a serial killing and waste valuable time? Ever worked a serial case before, boss?’

  ‘That’s hardly the point,’ snapped Francis. ‘We’ll just have to move forward as far as we can, treating them as separate cases until we find something that informs us otherwise.’

  ‘Or until another bloody body turns up,’ said Rory.

  ‘Speak to the duty inspectors. Make them aware there’s a killer – or even two – at large. We need more uniforms on the street. Both of these happened right in the centre of town . . .’

  The conversation was interrupted by the insistent chime of the DI’s mobile.

  ‘Bradshaw,’ he mouthed to Rory, as he picked up the phone.

  ‘Sir?’ Francis nodded a couple of times, his face serious. ‘Right away.’

  He cut the call and pushed back his chair.

  ‘Come on, we’ve got to go up and give him a progress report.’

  ‘That won’t take long,’ said Rory, following him out of the room.

  ‘That’s the problem.’

  ‘Are you going to mention our theory?’

  ‘That it’s a serial killer? I think not till we’ve got more to go on. It’ll give him a monumental hard-on that I, for one, wouldn’t want to deal with.’

  The boss certainly had a point.

  Detective Chief Inspector Bradshaw’s office was on the floor above, though that single floor represented a world of difference. There were no stains on his carpet and he had room for an armchair, a bookshelf and a couple of filing cabinets that together were probably bigger than the boss’s shoebox of an office.

  Sullivan had knocked and entered without waiting for a reply. Rory followed him in and they both stood waiting in front of Bradshaw’s desk as he finished off a phone call. The desk was clear of paperwork but there were several framed photos that featured not a brace of smiling children but the chief on a variety of golf courses. Rory positioned himself slightly behind and to one side of Sullivan – this exchange could get interesting.

  ‘Sit down,’ barked Bradshaw. His face was ruddy, possibly windburn from the golf course, more likely from the visit to the bar afterwards. He looked expectantly back and forth from Rory to Sullivan as they took their seats.

  ‘Sir . . .’ started Sullivan.

  ‘The Armstrong case. Have you arrested anyone yet?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Got any names?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What about Mullins? I thought we had him squarely in the frame.’

  ‘He had an alibi,’ said Rory. ‘It holds up.’

  ‘Four days on the case and you’ve made no progress at all. That’s about it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not exactly, sir,’ said Sullivan.

  Bradshaw’s face clouded with anger.

  ‘Then, please, fill me in.’

  There were rare moments, few and far between, when Rory didn’t begrudge Francis Sullivan the DI job. Reporting to Bradshaw was definitely one of them.

  ‘We’ve managed to identify both the victims, sir.’

  ‘Who was the second? Is there a link that might point to the same killer?’

  ‘We’re looking into it.’

  Bradshaw sighed. ‘But nothing concrete yet?’

  ‘The fingerprint match only came in half an hour ago, sir,’ said Rory.

  ‘He’s got form, has he? said Bradshaw. I take it you’ve put a call out to question all known associates?’

  ‘He had a four-year-old charge for joy-riding,’ said Sullivan. ‘No known associates. No contact with law enforcement since.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, you’re treading water. There’s a killer, or two killers, out there and you’ve got nothing.’

  ‘To be fair, sir, DI Sullivan does have a theory,’ said Rory.

  He noticed a muscle twitch in Sullivan’s cheek. He shouldn’t have said it.

  ‘Spit it out then, Sullivan.’

  ‘It’s nothing, sir. Just speculation. Far too early to make a thing of it.’

  Bradshaw glared across the desk. Sullivan’s cheeks reddened.

  ‘Simply a discussion we’ve been having, rather than a working theory.’

  Sullivan glanced down into his lap. An avoidance tactic – but he was going to have to spill. When he looked up again, he met the chief’s glare. Rory was impressed.

  ‘Evan Armstrong had a tattoo removed from his body. The skin was flayed—’ began Sullivan.

  ‘I know all this. Get to the point.’

  ‘The second victim, Jem Walsh had a scalp tattoo that covered most of his cranium. His head has yet to be found. But that makes two missing tattoos, suggesting that our killer, if it is the same person, is taking trophies.’

  Bradshaw placed his elbows on the desk and rested the ends of his fingertips against each other. He closed his eyes. He looked to Rory as if he was praying or meditating.

  ‘No.’ He hadn’t even bothered to open his eyes.

  ‘Sir?’ said Sullivan.

  Now his eyes sprang open.

  ‘Absolute bollocks, Sullivan. This is not a serial killer taking trophies. I doubt the murders were even committed by the same bloody person. Don’t waste your time and my budget on a crackpot theory.’ He stood up, glaring. ‘Can’t
you see it? These were two characters on the fringes of crime and I can guarantee that’s where you’ll find your answers.’

  ‘We’re keeping an open mind and exploring every possibility, sir,’ said Sullivan.

  ‘And that’s your bloody problem. Too much fannying about and not enough focus. Find out who these men associated with and you’ll find out why they were killed. After that, it’ll be easy.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Don’t make me feel obliged to bring in someone more experienced, Sullivan. That would be a failure for both of us. And I, for one, don’t do failure.’

  ‘I don’t either, sir,’ said Sullivan quietly, as he pushed his chair back.

  ‘We’ll get your killer for you, sir,’ said Rory. ‘Whether it’s one or two.’

  18

  Francis

  The first thing Francis noticed on letting himself into his sister’s flat was a layer of dust on the hall mirror. Guilt washed over him. Robin’s flat was usually spotless so this meant only one thing – a relapse, and he hadn’t seen her in weeks.

  ‘Is that you, Francis? I’m in the living room.’

  Francis went through and his suspicions were confirmed. His older sister was settled in her favourite armchair with a blanket over her knees, but he immediately spotted the crutches leaning against the back of the chair. Five years older than him, academically gifted and, in his eyes, beautiful, Robin was his role model, a woman he looked up to far more than their mother, Lydia. But today his sister looked tired and diminished, her mouth tight.

  ‘Robin, you should have told me, you goose.’

  He bent to kiss her cheek and noticed the smell of illness clinging to the clothes that hung loose on her tiny frame.

  ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Tea and sympathy? Hardly what I want.’

  ‘Speaking of which, I could use some tea.’

  He cleared away a meal tray from the coffee table in front of her and tidied the kitchen while the kettle boiled.

  ‘Have you seen Mum?’ she said, as soon as he came back into the living room.

  He shook his head.

  She sighed. ‘Come on, Fran. It’s okay to ignore me – I’ve got plenty of friends who care. But Mum? You know you’re her only visitor.’

  Francis didn’t mind getting a hard time from Robin. He deserved it.

  ‘It’s work,’ he said, pouring tea into two cups.

  ‘Not an excuse,’ said his sister.

  She stretched forward to take a biscuit from the plate and he noticed her difficulty in picking it up. MS affected her muscles, her co-ordination, her sight and occasionally her speech, when a relapse was bad. He hated what it was doing to her, but he knew better than to comment.

  ‘I know it’s not an excuse.’

  ‘And I suppose no social life either?’

  Francis shrugged. He always had to endure the gauntlet of Robin prying into his private life.

  ‘You won’t find a wife if you don’t ask any girls out.’

  Why the obsession with marrying him off?

  ‘Work’s more important. I’m trying to build a career.’

  ‘So tell me about it.’

  This was why he’d finally made the time to come and see her. Robin had always been his sounding board. She could think laterally and make connections that he or the rest of the team wouldn’t even stumble across. As they drank their tea, he filled her in on the details of the two murders. By the time he finished he was mournfully resting his head in both hands.

  ‘I’m getting nowhere,’ he said, ‘and this one’s really important.’

  ‘Every murder’s important,’ said Robin.

  ‘I know. But I’ve also got a boss who doesn’t believe in me and a team who think I’m a yuppy upstart. I’ve got a lot to prove.’

  ‘As usual. Let me think.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘It’s not, on the face of it, a serial killer,’ said Robin slowly, after silently chewing her way through three biscuits.

  ‘Different MOs, timing too close. Sure. Not a serial killer,’ said Francis. ‘But there’s something odd about both of them. No links to crime, no robbery, no sexual motivation.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean they’re linked.’

  ‘Great. So I’ve got two killers to catch with the same resources.’

  Robin ignored this and pondered over the pictures Francis had brought to show her.

  ‘This,’ she said, indicating Evan’s flayed shoulder, ‘definitely looks like a trophy’s been taken.’

  ‘But not Walsh’s head? He had a scalp tattoo.’

  ‘I get that. But if the killer just needed a tattoo as a trophy, Walsh had plenty of others to choose from, didn’t he? Taking a tattoo off a man’s cranium wouldn’t be easy.’

  ‘Which is why he needed to take the whole head.’

  ‘Instead of, say, that wolf on his leg?’

  Francis was stumped. He went back to the kitchen to fetch the rest of the packet of Hobnobs he’d opened.

  ‘Take a look at this,’ he said, holding out a sheaf of papers.

  ‘What is it?’ said Robin.

  ‘It’s a SCAS interrogation – Serious Crime Analysis Section. Details of other crimes for comparison points.’

  ‘So it would show you anything that might link two crimes together?’

  ‘In theory, yes. But there aren’t any other murders with reports of missing tattoos.’

  Robin studied the document.

  ‘So in this, your two murders wouldn’t be linked, would they? One missing tattoo, one missing head. Any chance of more tea, please, Fran?’

  While he filled the kettle and got the tea out, Francis thought about what Robin had said. Evan Armstrong and Jem Walsh’s murders wouldn’t show up a similar MO but they still had a fact in common.

  ‘Give me the report,’ he said, as soon as he’d put the fresh teas down on the coffee table.

  Robin handed it to him and he dropped onto the sofa, scanning the information for the umpteenth time.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ said Robin.

  Francis shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But there must be something here.’

  Something he’d stared straight through five times already. He went back to the top of the report and started reading the crime descriptions again.

  Then he spotted it. ‘Yes! This!’

  ‘What?’ said Robin.

  He snatched his phone from his pocket.

  ‘Rory? Rory, open the SCAS report, check out Giselle Connelly – a woman found dead at a golf course. One arm missing, not recovered despite extensive search. Find out if she had a tattoo on the missing arm. Let me know straight away.’

  ‘Francis, you’re a genius,’ said Robin.

  ‘Not so sure about that. If there’s no tattoo, then it means nothing. But if there is, we might have some kind of tattoo-obsessed serial killer on our hands.’

  ‘And all you need to do is work out who it is.’

  ‘Which I do how?’

  ‘By working out why he takes them, of course,’ replied his sister.

  Of course. It was all that obvious. Wasn’t it?

  19

  Marni

  Marni stood outside Tatouage Gris and asked herself what she was doing here. Did she really need Thierry’s help in identifying the image of the sleeve tattoo Francis had just given her, or was it simply an excuse to see him? And why was she helping Francis Sullivan anyway? Was she trying to impress him? The answers eluded her, so there was no point hanging around on the pavement.

  She pushed open the door and was hardly surprised when a stream of French invective greeted her arrival.

  ‘Merde! Can’t you leave me alone, connasse?’

  Even with a scowl on his face, Thierry still managed to look good to her.


  ‘I love you too, T,’ she said, ignoring the meaning of his words.

  The shop where Thierry worked with Charlie and Noa, plus a rotation of nubile female apprentices, was far bigger than her own and wasn’t divided into a front and back section. It would have seemed even larger if not for the fact that the interior was painted entirely black and divided by half-height walls into a series of individual tattooing stations. In one corner stood a partially stripped-down motorbike that Charlie had been working on for as long as anyone could remember.

  The place was rarely cleaned and a multitude of familiar smells always hung in the incense-laden air. Curry. Cigarettes. Dope. Disinfectant.

  ‘Marni!’ Noa practically sang her name across the studio and then swept her up into a hug. His beard scratched her cheeks as he bent to kiss her but being enveloped in his warm fug felt like coming home. ‘It’s been too long,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘When can I steal you away from all this?’

  Marni laughed. It had always been their joke, the affair that never materialised.

  As Noa went back to the drawing he was working on, Charlie waved at her over the naked torso he was tattooing.

  ‘Charlie,’ she said with a nod.

  She ignored the apprentice taking an inventory of the ink bottles in Thierry’s station. She looked like a punk schoolgirl. It was never worth learning their names. If they were any good they were quickly poached by rival studios who would pay them more, or they simply left over a broken romance with one of the boys. Marni had no time for any of them.

  Thierry glared at her but she knew better than to take it seriously. She hung her bag over the back of a stool and wriggled out of her jacket.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ said Thierry. ‘I don’t need to see you every day, do I?’

  ‘The police need our help.’

  ‘Our help?’ said Noa.

  ‘Francis sent me a picture of a sleeve tattoo. They’re trying to find out who did it. We’re the most likely people to know.’

  ‘Francis?’ said Thierry. ‘The man who arrested me? You’re now on first-name terms with him?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Feeling herself start to blush, although she was unsure quite why, Marni delved into her bag and pulled out a rolled-up photocopy. She unfurled it and pressed it out flat on an unused massage bench. It was a typical tattoo-shop shot of a woman’s arm with a spectacular biomechanical tattoo.